News and notes from the world of wine and spirits.

By Andrew Hoover

On Friday, August 10, E. & J. Gallo Winery announced its intention to purchase Courtside Cellars in San Miguel, California, in effort to support Gallo’s continued growth in California’s Central Coast. If the deal is finalized, Gallo would gain 34 acres and a winery capable of crushing 60,000 tons of grapes. Earlier this year, Gallo bought more than 300 acres of vineyards in Monterey County.

Structured Solutions Inc. and Aspect2, LLC—subsidiaries of the investment firm CastleGate Capital Advisors—acquired at auction the assets and liabilities of Crushpad, the financially troubled, Sonoma, California-based custom-crush facility, for $654,866.

Peter Zwack, fifth-generation owner of Zwack Unicum distillery and producer of the Hungarian herb liqueur, Unicium—passed away on August 4 at the age of 85. In 2008, Zwack became the honorary president of the company while his son, Sándor, took over the chairmanship, representing the family’s sixth generation.

The 10,000-bottle wine cellar of Feran Adrià’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant, El Bulli, which closed in July 2011, will be auctioned off by Sotheby’s. The tome-like wine list featured 139 pages spanning the world’s classic wine regions, with iconic producers like Spain’s Vega Sicilia and Pingus as well as France’s Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. The location and date of the auction is yet to be determined.

Sazerac’s Buffalo Trace Distillery will release a new small-batch rye whiskey in late August called Colonel E. H. Taylor Straight Rye. The new bottling, which will retail for approximately $70/750 ml, is made from a mix of malted barley and rye, with an abv of 50%.